WCA January 2017

From the Americas

An ANU phone survey conducted in June and July 2016 found that 67 per cent of 1,200 randomly selected individuals believe the retention of communications metadata is “justified as part of the effort to combat terrorism and protect national security.” In addition, almost 70 per cent of the respondents supported data retention for counterterrorism purposes. Corinne Reichert of ZDNet (10 th October) reported that legislation in effect since October 2015 stipulates storage for two years by telecom carriers of Australians’ call records, location, IP addresses, billing information, and other data, to be made accessible without a warrant by law-enforcement agencies. In response to complaints from small operators about the burden of compliance, the government announced an AU$128.4 million programme for covering the costs of mandatory data retention. Grants ranging from AU$10,000 to AU$39.9 million were distributed among 180 Internet service providers (ISPs). The latest jobs report bodes well for the current expansion in the USA – but the key to the future is in Mexican hands USA employers added 156,000 jobs in September 2016, the Labor Department said, enough to accommodate new entrants to the labour force and attract workers who dropped out after the recession of 2008-2010. Average hourly earnings rose by 0.2 percentage points in the month, bringing the wage gain over the previous year to 2.6 per cent, well above the pace of inflation. The typical workweek also grew slightly. A striking feature of the improved employment report – not apparent from the stark figures – is the important, indeed vital, contribution of Hispanic workers. As noted by Conor Sen of Bloomberg News , Since the low in December 2009, employment in the USA has increased by 13.6 million workers; and 43 per cent of that growth, or 5.9 million workers, derives from Hispanics – some born in the USA, others immigrants. In contrast to the white non-Hispanic Americans in a shrinking labour pool, more Hispanics are entering their prime working years, or are too young to retire. Excluding Hispanics, the labour force in the USA is virtually unchanged since 2008. Further refining the picture, Mr Sen pointed out that Mexico is by far the largest country of origin for Hispanic immigrants to the USA. Net migration from Latin America since the recession has been minimal (more Mexicans leaving than arriving), so the strong Mexican component in the USA labour force may be thought of as a “demographic dividend” from Hispanic immigration in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. (“The Future of the US Economy Lies in Mexico,” 26 th September) This is very germane to the labour challenges that the USA will confront over the next generation. The South and West must find workers to support the construction of needed housing and infrastructure, plus the service-sector The American economy

Designed as a flexible cable system, PLCN reportedly will permit the two parties to select their optical equipment independently, allowing users to choose from a variety of network equipment that will be interoperable within the system. Before this, noted Facebook’s Najam Ahmad, deployment of a new subsea cable was on a turnkey basis, with the system vendor providing the initial optical equipment on the basis of the technology available at the time the cable was contracted. In comparison, he wrote in a blog post, the commercial/ technical PLCN approach “allows for independence between the wet plant and the optical technology.” (“Google, Facebook Partner on LA-to-Hong Kong Fiber Cable,” 12 th October). What this means, Mr Ahmad said, is that equipment can be refreshed as optical technology improves, even if advances are made while the system is under construction. When equipment can be continually upgraded, costs should go down and bandwidth rates should increase faster. According to Mr Ahmad, construction on the PLCN project was to have begun by the New Year, with commissioning scheduled for 2018. Elsewhere in telecom . . .  Verizon apparently told its field technician crews in Pennsylvania that they could lose their jobs if they try to fix broken copper phone lines. As reported by Jon Brodkin of Ars Technica (5 th October), workers must instead try to replace copper lines with a connection to the Verizon Wireless cell phone network. A 20 th September Verizon memo to workers warned, “Failure to follow this directive may result in disciplinary action up to and including dismissal.” The memo was made public by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which asked the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission to put a stop to such copper-to-wireless conversions. The union claims that the wireless home phone service VoiceLink is not a proper replacement for a copper phone line because it is inoperable with security alarms, medical devices such as pacemakers that require telephone monitoring, fax machines and other equipment. For its part, Verizon – whose use of VoiceLink to replace broken copper lines has been controversial for years – defended its position to Ars Technica . In response to Mr Brodkin’s question, a Verizon spokesperson outlined the circumstances in which the company will restore copper-based phone connections: “If the serving wire from the pole to the house is cut or has a tree [interfering with it], we’ll tell our technicians to address the situation. But in cases where the trouble proves to be in the copper cable requiring another truck roll (which will extend the out-of-service condition), it makes sense to restore service to the customer immediately. The tech can do this with VoiceLink. The goal here is to restore service as quickly as possible to the customer.”  Australian National University (ANU) has found that over two-thirds of respondents polled on “Attitudes to National Security: Balancing Safety and Privacy” support federal telecommunications data-retention laws intended to protect national security.

51

www.read-wca.com

Wire & Cable ASIA – January/February 2017